Trailing expectations

Nearly four months after regulations were relaxed to allow securities firms to distribute equity derivatives products to South Korea’s retail and institutional investors, sales volumes have been slower than some firms expected. Saima Farooqi reports

South Korea’s securities firms have sprinted into the country’s equity derivatives markets in the past few months, excited by regulatory changes that have opened up the over-the-counter derivatives market. Eager to target the institutional and retail investor market for the first time, domestic securities houses have begun distributing a wide array of products, ranging from the plain vanilla to the more complex and exotic structures.

But with South Korea’s equity derivatives market